WATER UNDER THE BRIDGES
had immense personality. Abroad that counts more than people in
England realize. Speaking from my own experience as a diplomat
abroad, I know only too well the difference it made, the greater weight
it carried, and the more consideration was likely to be given, if one
was able in one's talks with foreign Ministers to assert that this, that,
or the other were the views of, say, Lord Curzon or Lord Halifax
rather than those of some less impressive personage. As Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs H.M. Government should if possible always
choose a real personality calculated to impress and influence the
foreign mind. Even with H.M. representatives abroad that sort of
thing, though obviously of minor importance, also counts. In a sense
it is a form of propaganda, the value of which in all respects we are
so prone to underestimate.
One discovered, however, an appreciation of the point in curious
places. I recollect Mr. Tom Shaw, who was at the time Secretary of
State for War in the second Labour Government, coming to France
to unveil a memorial at Amiens, Incidentally, he astounded the
French by making his speech there in their own language and by
quoting something out of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables about a
Bishop of Amiens of which most of the Frenchmen were themselves
ignorant. He came on to Paris that evening and dined with me, as
I happened to be at the moment in charge of the Embassy. He told
us how he had first taken up the study of foreign languages after
having attended a Labour Conference in Berlin and having realized
how handicapped he was by knowing no other tongue but his own.
Having no money to buy books, he had got hold of a Dutch grammar
at some free library and so had learnt Dutch first of all. Then German
and French, and he was now, he told us, studying Italian. He was a
remarkable man and honest-to-God Labour. It was a men's dinner,
and he kept us all interested till he left at midnight, I was personally
immensely impressed by him, and I remember thinking how gladly
I would serve a Labour Government if all its Ministers (were like him,
real common-sense Labour and less idealistic Socialist intelligentsia.
But the point of this story is that he astonished me in the course of
the evening by suddenly remarking to me, " I suppose you find it
very useful to be tall and presentable-looking in the Diplomatic
Service?" I replied that it did put one a lap or two ahead at die start,
though only at the start, since without brains a mere fagade would
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